Working hours may have declined overall in recent decades, but many feel that the demands of their jobs have intensified, leading them to believe their careers should eclipse everything else. This has an impact on their level of satisfaction with their working lives, as a recent survey reveals.

Hewlett-Packard set out to understand whether work still leads to well-being and fulfillment by conducting a survey among 12,000 office workers in 12 countries, including France, India, the United States, and Japan. Of them, only 27% felt they had a healthy relationship with work.

Overall, working people in emerging economies are more satisfied with the place their careers occupy in their lives. For example, 50% of workers in India say they have a healthy relationship with their job, compared with just 5% in Japan.

This dissatisfaction is not without consequences for the physical and mental well-being of working people. Nearly half of them (48%) say the impact of their job is such that they feel emotionally and physically drained after their working day.

As a result, they tend to neglect their family and social relationships (45%), as well as their leisure activities (59%).

Caught between the demands of work and their personal lives, employees also tend to neglect their health: 62% say they don’t exercise as much or eat as healthily as they would like.

This situation is all the more worrying as it has repercussions beyond the personal sphere: working people who are unhappy with their professional lives tend to be less committed to their jobs.

A third of respondents who say they have an unhealthy relationship with their job admit to doing the bare minimum. In other words, they are “quiet quitting”, with nearly 40% of those surveyed saying they are disengaged and not very involved in the life of their company.

This lack of motivation can only accentuate the phenomenon of “job hopping”, which has been on the rise in recent years. Indeed, 76% of employees dissatisfied with their relationship with work are considering leaving their current job, while only 35% see themselves remaining with their current employer over the next two years.

It is, therefore, in the interests of bosses and managers to ensure their staff feel fulfilled in what they do. A company’s attractiveness on the job market depends on it since, at present, only 24% of working people would recommend their company to someone else.

Yet, all over the world, working people want nothing more than to be more invested in their professional lives. The desire to reduce the amount of time they spend on work is not a sign of generalised laziness but an expression of the difficulties they face because of their careers.

Workers claim they are prepared to make a number of compromises if it means having a more rewarding, fulfilling career. For example, 83% say they are prepared to earn less if it means loving their job more.